


crooked empire.

by bigpunktapes (biggayghost)



Category: Crooked Media RPF
Genre: Cults, M/M, hey what the fuck, this took over my brain and now everyone has to suffer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-11
Updated: 2020-03-11
Packaged: 2021-02-26 14:49:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23108572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/biggayghost/pseuds/bigpunktapes
Summary: crooked media is a cult, and jon favreau is the voice of a movement. just like he planned.
Relationships: Jon Favreau/Jon Lovett
Comments: 14
Kudos: 23





	crooked empire.

**Author's Note:**

> big thanks to [bitterbeets (ginnydear)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ginnydear/pseuds/bitterbeets) for the hand-holding, a couple of the other beans for letting me throw ideas at the wall with them, and all of y’all at the server for encouraging this wild idea and staying patient while i plotted and teased and hammered it out in fic form.
> 
> -
> 
> i have two more chapters of this already (mostly) written but decided to cut the first installment off here. stay tuned for part two: tommy and part three: crooked media.
> 
> -
> 
> this work is directly inspired by bandom’s cultverse, as well as the popslash forever classic ‘flesh mechanic (not an AU)’.
> 
> and as always: keep it secret, keep it safe.

If you look closely at the Founder’s Office inside Crooked Media headquarters, you’ll see an almost imperceptible height difference in one of the desks. The official line, for anyone who actually takes the moment to notice (and few rarely do, too distracted by the men who occupy them), is that someone had made a mistake and let Jon Lovett put the desks together, and since why would anyone have trusted him to know there were multiple leg heights anyway, the first one got built a little taller. Only Favs, Lovett, Tommy, and Tanya had been in the new office the day they got built, so only they knew it had been Tommy, not Lovett, who put them together, and only they knew the way Tommy _ beamed _ with pride when Jon automatically sat at the taller one.

They know better than to tell anyone.

They also know, as the inner circle, the smartest people in the room, that the taller desk affords Jon certain subtle advantages. Interns instinctively put his coffee down first. It’s easier for him to hide his phone in his lap, or for someone to fold in that slightly-taller space between the underside of his desk and the floor. A taller desk means he keeps his space more organized, so his is the most open surface for any new memo or contract to be placed on. A taller desk means that when he looks out over it, to this company, this _ family _ he’s built, there’s an air of surveying his territory that’s undeniable.

A taller desk means your eyes are drawn to him first. And why shouldn’t they be?

He is, after all, The Founder.

The Leader.

The Author and The Voice.

Crooked Media is an empire, expanding more each day, and if you look closely, Jon Favreau has the tallest desk in the room.

\---

But that’s not where our story starts. Our story starts with a meeting. Favs and Cody have been in a conference room all day, trying to flesh out a response to Favs’ first real mistake. He’d made a dumb play to appeal to the humor of the men in the room, grabbing beers with some other members of the campaign staff, letting the message slip long enough in favor of some cheap, camaraderie-building laughs by groping a piece of cardboard. (“_ This is not how things are done_,” Dan had fervently - angrily - whispered in his ear. “You don’t go to people like them. You want them to hear the message and believe enough that they come to _ you_. _ That’s _ where power comes from.) Someone had ratted Cody out as having a personal friend in the Clinton camp, and that kind of discretion would get him iced out for weeks, but they had to solve this problem first. Cody called The Kid his friend recommended - Jon, he was pretty certain - as he stood in front of Fav’s desk and wrang his hands together, refused to meet his eyes.

(After the weeks of silence and public, deliberate rewrites of Cody’s best lines, of sitting two people away from him when they go for drinks, of whispering nothings at Tommy just to remind him of the pain of keeping secrets, Favs sits him down across his desk, take both of his wrists in his hands, and thanks him. His idea to bring Lovett into the circle added validity to their message for a whole new group of listeners. Why wouldn’t the first black President have the first openly gay speechwriter? His eyes are bright and genuine and Cody feels the warmth of the sun on his face once more. The rough few weeks were worth it. He’d done a good thing.)

So their story starts with the meeting. Jon Lovett arrives ten minutes late in boldly colored shorts, the thick frames of his glasses emerging out of a bed of uncontained curls. He’s timid at first. This is _ Jon Favreau_. Everyone knows Jon Favreau, speechwriting wunderkind, already head of his own OEoB department, skin like gold and eyes like honey and words as inspiring as the goddamn Bible, but Jon makes him feel immediately like Lovett belongs at his side. It takes him a record low amount of time to be able to mimic Favs’ writing style, and it’s an even shorter window before he’s also mimicking Jon’s voice, mocking him at the same time as he’s molding the best apology possible. No one’s ever mocked Jon like that before, and each laugh Lovett wrings out of him surprises him less than the one before.

Lovett finishes adjusting a few words in the final paragraph, and the statement is done. He looks up, heady with the excitement of having done well and the warm look in Favs’ eyes, to find they’ve darkened considerably. Jon is _ angry_, suddenly, hard lines and widening pupils trained on Cody. 

Lovett feels the all the oxygen disappear from the room.

“You didn’t tell me he was _ funny_, Cody,” he spits through gritted teeth. A few deep breaths, and what Lovett hadn’t thought of as a mask until that moment slipped back across his softening features. Jon’s hand reaches out, finds Cody’s arm, grips tight until Cody meets his eyes.

“It’s okay.” Takes a deep breath, cocks his head. “You didn’t know.”

“I didn’t know,” Cody responds, but his eyes are blank and it’s clear he’s not answering a question. He’s repeating a mantra. The intensity in Jon’s eyes frightens Lovett, but everyone knows the Obama Bros are intense. He writes it off. They’ve managed to do a good thing here today, and that’s what matters. That’s why he came to DC when Cody and Jon called.

They did a good thing,

And what kind of person could possibly turn _ away _ from Jon’s light?

\---

There’s a van parked outside of the Lovett home in Syosset. Jon has all his things together, for what feels like maybe the first time in his life. He’s got a job, a six-month lease on a horrible closet in DC, some money (a Bubbe had tucked it away who knew when, seemingly waiting for the day she could press it into his unexpecting palm and tell him to get some good clothes, real suits, he had such handsome eyes).

The horn blares.

Oh. And he’s got three strong friends who, for reasons he could not explain but somehow believed were genuine, took the only Saturday they’d probably have off for the rest of their careers and drove out with a moving van to help him get settled.

They help him pack. Favs laughs fondly - like they’ve been lifelong friends, like they hadn’t only met weeks before - every time they each bring a box out to the van and Lovett, reliably, trails behind them with a single book, or a shoe he must have packed the other of, _ look, don’t groan, I only have the three pairs. _ The boxes stacked on the curb, Cody is arranging the truck at Fav’s direction, taking longer than it should considering the limited amount of possessions and closet space Lovett had, while Tommy charms the _ pants _ off of Fran Lovett. Tommy seems distracted, and Favs shoots a smile at Jon that feels like lightning. Tommy must catch it, though. His eyes flash with something that Lovett thought was excitement, but with something layered over it. Recognition. Maybe hunger.

Either way, it’s an unspoken prompt and Tommy strides outside, phone in hand. Favs asks Lovett to come confirm that everything’s good to go before they leave. “Please, just double-check your boxes, it’s not like you can come back home,” and _ why can’t he? _ but his mom chuckles fondly and Favs eyes have something sparking behind them so he follows without more than the usual, perfunctory protest. Cody’s pulling his phone out to show Fran a map, where his apartment is with Tommy, where Lovett’s will be, the offices, the bike paths, their already-preferred coffeehouses.

He follows the beaming smile out the door, down the driveway, drinking in Jon’s words. “You’re going to be perfect,” the steady stream says. “We’re so happy to have you joining the team. I can’t wait to see what you can _ really _ do. I don’t know how you fell into our laps but I’m so glad you did, so glad you submitted a speech, so _ lucky _ I found you. You and I, we’re gonna change the world, Lovett,” and Jon’ll be damned if it doesn’t seem like this golden child believes every word he’s saying. Praise coming from Jon Favreau almost makes Lovett believe he deserves it. Maybe they _ can _ change the world. Maybe he can not mess this up and be everything Jon wants him to be.

It’s possible he’s too busy drowning in the Hope And Change of it all to see Jon’s next move coming, backing him against the door of the van - a quick, terrified check, his front door’s still closed, mom nowhere to be seen - smile turning predatory but the chorus of words still the same. “You’re going to be the best thing that ever happens to me,” Favs says, inches from his lips. “I’m so glad I picked you. Will you come with us?”

The question means a few things. Jon Lovett isn’t stupid, and he could see Tommy’s feet kicked up against the dashboard of the van as they’d walked towards it. He leans into the kiss and gives his answer.

The back of a U-Haul parked in front of his parents’ home while an eager puppy dog of a WASP sits in the front seat and pretends to fiddle with his phone is by no means the way this fantasy played out in his head, but Jon’s lips are soft and his skin is warm and Lovett loses himself in his words, so many words floating around him, _ you’re perfect, i can’t wait for everyone to see what i see, let’s burn the world down and build a new one_, he almost doesn’t hear the lube bottle snap open or feel the initial burn of those long fingers or even notice that he’s started chanting his own repetitive hymn.

_ Thank you. _

He comes quickly, with a muffled sob, tries to look away, but Jon grabs his jaw and forces their eyes to lock and starts thrusting into his body with more force, and Lovett lets himself be used. When Jon finally comes, the litany of promises and praise still spilling from his lips, and Tommy turns around while Lovett’s cleaning himself up to shoot him a conspirator’s grin, and Cody knocks on the side of the van to let them know they’d been gone just long enough, he realizes he’d let these boys use him any way they wanted to. Any way they had to.

It didn’t matter what they took from him. They were going to change the world.

If the smile he gives his mother as they say their final goodbyes and head for DC looks eerily similar to the ones Favs, Tommy, and Cody also give her, well, there’s nothing wrong with being happy.


End file.
